You might have noticed that last week I said I would blog every day between Monday and Friday and you might also have noticed that I failed to blog on Monday and Tuesday this week.  Mea Culpa!  I was being over-optimistic about what I could realistically achieve.  You see Mondays and Tuesdays are hectic for me.  Mondays I home school in the morning, drop my daughter off at a child-minders at lunch time, then teach in a primary school until 3.30pm.  I then collect my daughter and drive across town to teach a private student French for one hour.  Home at 5.45pm it’s time to cook dinner etc.  Tuesdays are worse.  Home school to 11am, childminders, teach at school from 11.30 to 3,30, collect daughter, two half-hour French lessons, then off to Beaver Scouts where my daughter is a Beaver and I’m a Scout Leader.  Home at 7.30pm, dinner, bedtime etc.   I was hoping to squeeze a blog in first thing in the morning before home-school starts at 8.30am, but with my other editorial duties this was just impossible. 

Still, I do believe that this over-estimation of what we can achieve is yet another one of those writer’s foibles that affect us all from time to time.  We would like to achieve x, x and x and think that if we say we can do it, we will do so.  I have seen it enough times in writer’s goals and business plans to know that this is a common problem.  We want to sell more articles so we say we will do five queries a week.  But how many of us if we are not full-time freelancers have the time to research markets and come up with ideas for five queries a week?  We say we are going to finish the first draft of our novel in six months.  Unless we can spend two hours a day working on our novel how can we achieve this?  All too often as writers we set ourselves up for failure by being over-optimistic in what we can achieve.  Such over-optimism can lead to serious problems in our writing.  If we are constantly setting ourselves unrealistic targets we are constantly setting ourselves up for failure.  If we are constantly getting angry with ourselves for failing to achieve our targets we reduce our willingness to try and we reduce our effectiveness.  If this continues for long enough we can give up entirely.   A famous study found that if we set ourselves too many goals this doesn’t improve our work or our effectiveness; it reduces it.  If, however, we only set ourselves four achievable goals we are more likely to achieve them and to exceed them.   Bear in mind then, my over-optimisim when planning your goals.  Take into account your real life needs and time constraints and set yourself achievable goals.  That way you are more likely to achieve them.  As for me, my new blogging goal is three posts a week.   Let’s see if I can achieve it.

One of the most common problems that new writers have is trying to find the time to write. This isn’t an issue that only affects new writers; it affects all writers.

We all have other lives to lead and at times it can seem impossible to find the time to write. Yet no matter how hectic our days are, if we actually think about it, we could find time to write.

Some writers I know have two hour commutes to and from work. Others are busy housewives and mothers, yet they still find time to write. They are not superhuman. They just take whatever time they can and put it to good use.

They forgo watchting tv to write. They get up earlier or they do most of their planning throughout the day so that when they can finally grab fifteen minutes to write they do just that; they write.

If your life is hectic then take time to think about your writing whilst doing other things: queuing up in the bank, doing the laundry, doing the shopping, walking the dog etc, so that you already know what it is you want to write when you finally sit down to do it.

If you don’t believe me, then maybe you’ll listen to Agatha Christie who said: “The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes.” If it worked for her I don’t see why it can’t work for you either. Give it a go and let me know how you get on.

Damien must wonder why on earth I asked him to install a blog on the new website. I mean, it’s not as if I’ve used it. I do feel for him, having searched around and spent ages getting the blog to work only for it to lie around being unused and neglected.

That is about to change.

The reason I’ve not been blogging is that, well, to put it simply I’d lost my writing mojo.

Sure I was working on a minimal level, doing what I had to do but couldn’t find the inspiration or energy to go beyond that.

I don’t know if this is an after-effect of the family trouble I had earlier on in the year and the depression that followed it, but I do know that recently writing has seemed harder than it should be.

So I decided that the easiest way to get back in the swing of things would be to go back to basics.

Now originally I started writing with the Writers Bureau course, but I was not going to restart that. I stopped on Assignment 4 and I STILL can’t think of any fillers to write! So I went back to a book I bought just after I started the course and which helped me to publication success much faster than the course alone would have done. I sat down and re-read “Starting Your Career As a Freelance Writer” by Moira Allen.

If you haven’t read this book then I strongly suggest you do. It is a no-nonsense guide to becoming a freelance writer. She just tells it as it is and reassures you that yes, you can be a writer. I set up NewbieWriters in a way to emulate her no-nonsense but supportive advice to writers. Moira Allen has a lot to answer for.

You see, even though I didn’t know her then, I hadn’t even written for her in those early days, she inspired me to become the best writer I ever could. And she still inspires me now. Actually, I think it would be fairer to say she gives me well-directed kicks up the butt to raise my game and stretch my writing. She sends me contest links and says “you can do this.” Or emails me to say “You should write a book on this.” In other words, she continuously urges me to improve. And we all need someone like that on our side. This was, after all, one of the reasons I set up the forum, so we can all have someone to urge us along.

Anyway, refresher course completed, mojo back in place, you can now expect regular blog posts from me. Two today and one every weekday from now on.

And it’s all thanks to Moira.

Speaking of Moira, if you want to listen to her advice on writing for the international market you can listen to a podcast of a recent interview she did here.

http://authorsaccess.com/archives/date/2009/09

Hi everyone, just a quick post here. I have recently advertised calls for writers for Demand Studios in the newsletter and in the forum. Many writers do like to write for content providers; they see it as a way to earn regular income whilst improving their skills. Personally I have not written for article sites like this but have always thought it was up to the individual to make his or her own decision as to whether to go down this route or not. I only feel it is fair, however, to draw your attention to this article on Demand Studios by Angelo Hoy at Writers Weekly. Read it before you decide to write for them or not.

http://writersweekly.com/the_latest_from_angelahoycom/005650_10142009.html